Dahl Winters

Personal Website: www.realizen.com
Contact Information: 320 Saunders Hall | wintersd@realizen.com | (919) 943-1221

Research Interests

• To study the impact of climate change and habitat fragmentation on the large-scale migration of plant communities, using a combination of bioclimatic and fragmentation models, GIS, and satellite, field, and historical data

About Me

My scientific background is mainly in physics, biology, and earth science, so I have an unusual history from most ecology students. However, it doesn't feel unusual for me because I'm still studying how nature works. In physics, it was studying matter-energy interactions at scales ranging from atoms to the known universe. In biology, I studied the living embodiments of that matter and energy. In ecology, I've moved up to a scale somewhere between single cells and the Earth.

After earning my B.S. in Biology at Duke University I spent some years away from school. I served as a biology TA at Duke and did research in visual ecology. Afterwards, to see ecology in action, I went on numerous trips: a birding/photography trip to the Outer Banks of NC, long camping trips to the Great Plains, southwest US, and western NC, and finally, a multi-week canoe trip to Ontario, Canada. When I look at hundreds of square kilometers of species ranges compressed to my laptop screen, I have a sense of how real those pixels are.

I care about people and other living things too much to be away from research that can potentially help save the things I love. However, I also love outdoor activities, and try to spend my free time there when I can (while most of it is still there). I also enjoy doing nature and high-speed photography with my husband, designing web sites (like this one), and keeping up with the latest physics discoveries.